


Orbiting Planet Matt

by shockcity (pcp)



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV), Marvel 616
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Matt Murdock Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 10:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10784676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pcp/pseuds/shockcity
Summary: attempts at befriending Matt Murdock fall rather flat





	Orbiting Planet Matt

**Author's Note:**

> If you think you've read this before then you probably have. I initially posted this in a compilation and then received a request to post the stories within the compilation separately. This sounded like a better idea, so I removed the story and decided to add the others from my tumblr as one-shots. Also, I do the bulk of my writing on my blog, so you may have read this there as well. 
> 
> *denotes dialogue taken directly from the comics, and in this case all quotes belong to Bendis.

  


**1**

“Are those for me?” Peter asks, mask turned toward the greasy bag of chili dogs. “It’s not my birthday.”

“It’s not mine either.” Matt grins at him. “Yet here you are.”

Peter climbs down from the flag pole and lands agilely next to the man in red. His stomach is grumbling. The hot dogs are from Joe’s, he thinks. “Joe’s?” he inquires.

“Joe’s,” says Matt. “Only the best.”

Peter is rummaging through the bag cheerfully until he remembers exactly who he’s talking to. He pauses and looks up, and Matt shrugs a little and says, “I need information.”

He’s not surprised, but he is a little hurt. 

“Right,” he mutters, pulling up his mask so he can take a large bite of his chili dog. It’s delicious – Matt sure knows how to bribe a guy. “What’s up?” 

“Heard you tangled with Mysterio recently,” Matt begins, and they talk shop for a bit as Peter inhales his food and quietly wonders if Matt ever takes a day off. 

He’s certainly very dedicated, and Peter admires that dedication; Matt gets the job done. But he’s definitely a lone wolf for good reason, because working with Matt is not anyones idea of fun. Like at all. Ever. 

For example: Peter will say, “right, let’s make a plan” and turn around and find Matt already beating on people. Or Peter will try to deescalate a situation – “there’s no need for violence,” he’d say, and instead Matt would be like, “fight me.”

It was exhausting. 

And while civilians liked to call Matt the _man without fear_ , most of the superhero community thought he was more like the _man without tact_.

“Thanks,” Matt says when he’s picked Peter’s brain to his satisfaction. He perches on the edge of the building, ready to swing back to Hell’s Kitchen. 

“Hey,” Peter calls out before he can vanish. “I heard about Foggy.”

Matt tenses. 

“How is he? How are you?” 

Peter waits, and waits. And waits. Matt is silent and still, hanging on the edge of a skyscraper. He doesn’t turn to Peter and say, “yeah, thanks buddy,” or “yeah man, I’m wrecked” like a normal guy. 

Instead he says, “I’ll be seeing you,” and disappears. 

Peter likes that Matt makes his little blind jokes and knows that he’s a sucker for Joe’s chili dogs. Peter admires the mortal man that jumps off buildings and takes on ninjas and super soldiers and psychopaths. More than once, he’s wanted to be like Daredevil – fearless, honorable, persistent. Peter has known Matt Murdock for years; has fought with him, laughed with him, and mourned with him. He considers Matt his friend.

He just wishes he was sure it was mutual. 

**2**

Luke finds Matt using a dumpster to prop himself up as he clutches his ribs. The ninjas are looming at the end of the alley, wary of fighting both Power Man and Daredevil. At least for now, anyway. 

“Need help, Murdock? Looks like you could use a hand.”

Luke spends too much time with Danny, and he’s forgotten that Matt doesn’t have a sense of humor. 

“What are you doing here?” Matt snaps, straightening with a wheeze. “I had it under control.”

He raises his hands up in mock defense. “I was only asking if you needed help, man.” 

“I don’t need your help.”

Luke glares at him, despite the fact Matt won’t see it. “Yeah, alright. You get creamed by those ninjas and I’ll just stand here and watch. No skin off my back.”

“What are you doing here?”

He frowns. “I was looking for a friend…thought maybe we could help each other.”*

“I don’t need your help. Go back to Harlem.” 

“Check your tone, man,” Luke warns him, frustrated, but after a moment he sighs. “C'mon, Matt,” he says. 

Matt blows him off. “I’m fine. I’ve got this. I don’t come into your city and tell you how to do your job. What are you even doing in Hell’s Kitchen? Damn it!” 

The ninjas have decided to attack while they are both distracted, and despite Matt’s snapping, he does need Luke’s help. They make quick work of it and then turn and face each other warily. 

“Thanks,” Matt says, because he likes to be frustrating. 

Luke looks at him and wishes he could write off Daredevil completely. They never get along – if it’s not Matt going off on Luke it’s Luke going off on Matt. They just don’t mesh. Jessica says it’s because they’re a lot alike. Luke thinks she’s crazy, but he loves her anyway. 

“Whatever, man,” he mutters, peeved, and Matt turns and walks away. 

Luke doesn’t call him back, even though he wants to. There’s a part of him that wants very much to be friends with Murdock, if only because he admires his strength. He’s not got powers like Luke, and he’s sure as hell not bulletproof, which makes Matt going out there and taking on villains that much more impressive. Luke can respect that. 

“Whatever, man,” he says again, but he is talking to no one. Matt is gone. 

He bets Murdock hears him anyway. 

**3**

Danny doesn’t want to deal with Matt tonight. He feels bad for thinking it, but sometimes Matt is just, well…

Matt.

“You eat too much yakisoba.”

_FYI,_ he thinks sarcastically, _Daredevil knows private things about the general status of your body and is not afraid to use it._

“Please,” Danny groans. “I’m in pain.”

“You have indigestion, Danny,” Matt points out pitilessly. “Your blood pressure is off the charts. Have you considered eating something outside of the staple diet foods of a college freshman?”

He hates Matt, but he’s also amused by him because life sucks. “Master Izo eats it too,” he argues.

“Izo is also in my kitchen drinking grain alcohol.” 

Danny only moans. 

Matt sighs and walks out of the living room, leaving him to languish on the sofa. He’s tired of Izo’s stupid mission and Matt’s endless drama with the Hand. He wishes they would lay off Matt for once, and then maybe Matt would lay off him. It’s not very likely though, because he’s pretty sure Matt lives to judge people. Not to say Matt’s a bad guy, he’s just, well…

Matt. 

“Here,” he says, startling Danny a little. “Try this.” 

In Matt’s hand is a steaming cup of tea. Danny can smell lemon and honey and ginger, and his stomach gurgles hopefully. He takes the cup and sips at it, feeling the warmth travel down his throat and into his upset stomach. He sighs with relief. 

“Thanks, Matt,” Danny tells him, smiling. 

Matt smiles back. 

“Sure,” he says. “But you really need to change your diet.”

He hates Matt so much. 

**4**

He left her for last.

It was infuriating and hurtful, and being infuriating and hurtful is something that Matt Murdock is very good at. It’s one of his worst character flaws, for sure. 

He also has a lot of weird problems that Jessica just doesn’t have time for, and hang-ups she’s really not sure she wants to know about. But one of the things she _does_ know about him, without a doubt, is that he’s freaking nuts. 

But that’s not all, and Jessica was in the mood to shit talk, so: 

First, there is no reason for all that self-flagellation.

“You need to get over yourself, Murdock,” she’d say. “Or just end it.”

This proved to be counterproductive, because Matt would then just whine about how Jessica was right; he was a horrible person, he didn’t deserve to live… blah blah blah. He wouldn’t even whine in the literal sense and show just a little weakness like a real human. Murdock had perfected the art of silent martyrdom. He lingered in the shadows in the rain on your roof, thinking about sacrifice and justice while regular people did their taxes and ate microwave dinners. 

Fucking Matt Murdock. 

Second of all, and most importantly – he was obviously crazy and needed help. Jessica liked to think she knew a lot about being fucked up, especially by traumatic shit. She had trust issues, and addictions, and nightmares. People had just really screwed her over in general. So she got Murdock more than most. Life had taken a huge shit on him, no mistake, and it didn’t seem to be getting any better. She felt bad for him, really, she did.

But he was also fucking crazy. 

The whole dressing like the devil and beating the crap out of people was the first clue. Second was his extreme self-loathing. Jessica had thought she was self-destructive, but this guy was a mess. 

Then there was the mood swings, and the general brooding sadness wafting off of him even on the good days. Murdock just really took the cake in the crazy competition.

Thirdly, lastly, finally: 

It was unfair but despite all his flaws, Matt was actually very likable. In a way. Sort of. Jessica thought it was more like magnetism, or gravity ( _to the unfortunate bastards orbiting Planet Matt_ , she thought, _good luck fuckers, have fun being pelted with comets made up of depression and guilt_ ). 

When out of that scary suit (and holy shit was it fucking scary when he was looming at you in a dark alley threatening you with severe bodily harm), Matt dressed as a fancy, charming, smooth-talking lawyer that was stupidly attractive. She could admit that he wasn’t bad looking without embarrassment, because Jessica wasn’t blind. Unlike some people. 

If you were unlucky enough to meet the Matt outside of both suits, then it was absolutely impossible to hate the guy no matter how much you wanted to. Jessica had once asked Nelson about the over-large hoodies and fuzzy socks, and all he’d done was groan. 

The fact that Matt was so endearing made it hard to be angry with him. 

“Fuck, Murdock!” she was currently screaming. “Everybody knows but me! Everybody fucking knows!”

Luke is standing in the corner looking zen. Matt is unintimidated because fuck him. 

“You can’t say, ‘Hey, by the way, Jessica, being that you’re putting your life on the line for me, I think it’s only fair to tell you that I am, in fact, the vigilante known as Daredevil’?”*

“I’m Daredevil,” Matt says. 

Jessica curses the day she met his stupid ass because Matt fucking Murdock is a headache she never asked for.

But got anyway. Fuck. 

**5**

There’s a chance she’s making a mistake. She’s got so many complicated exes that whenever she approaches one it’s always bound to go south eventually, so logic says that Natasha should avoid all of them. Or at least the ones she doesn’t work with. 

But Matt is different. He’s always been different. 

“You’re losing your touch, Murdock,” she jeers, melting out of the shadows as Matt startles. “You – ugh. Really?” 

He definitely knew she was there. He’s a terrible actor, and he’s teasing her. This is a good sign, Natasha thinks, because when Matt’s sense of humor is healthy, it means _he’s_ relatively healthy, and when he smiles like that it means he’s genuinely happy to see her. She’s timed this visit right, because sometimes he can’t stand company, and Natasha gets that. 

She’s like that too. 

“Are you just visiting or is this Fury?” 

“Just visiting,” she says. “And maybe a little Fury. He’s not concerned with you right now, but he’s annoying me lately so…. Plus I had some PTO.”

He grins at her. “You know, you’re the only partner I ever really tolerated.” 

“I know,” she smiles back. 

They go out that night and beat up the low-lifes of Hell’s Kitchen. They dance together, as they’ve always done. His body is lithe and beautiful; twisting and turning in the sky as they swing from one corner to the next in both shadow and moonlight. Natasha loves this. Loves him. She always will. 

After they fight, they have wine and leftover Thai on his living room floor in the early hours of the morning. 

“Cat got your tongue?” she asks when he is silent for too long. 

He hesitates. “I missed you,” he admits. “I missed this.” 

She did too. “You could partner up,” she suggests, knowing he’ll refuse. Matt has only ever worked well with Natasha or Elektra. Everyone else expects him to be someone he’s not. 

He doesn’t even say no; he just raises his eyebrows. 

“'Tasha,” he begins, after shuffling through his noodles a bit. “Do you ever wish you’d stayed in San Francisco?”

“Yes,” she says immediately. “All the time.” 

“Even with me?” 

Life is unfair. Natasha thinks about how unfair it is and normally she just laughs. No one escapes misery, least of all the Black Widow. She is born for it, thrives in it, expects it wherever she goes. Misery and unfairness are old, old friends. 

But when she thinks about what life did to Matt, she’s angry. People don’t get her, don’t understand her desire for solitude and difficulty with feelings. They ask her why she doesn’t _care_ more, and, if they happen to really hate her – how she sleeps at night. They judge. They think she looks for love in all the wrong places. That she can fight well but can self-destruct better. 

Everyone that meets Natasha has something to say. 

But not Matt. They are ex-lovers. Sometimes they backslide and fall into bed together; sometimes she comes to him and holds him and listens to his soft breathing and steady heartbeat. They separate and join; separate and join. Two halves of a whole.

He is her friend, her confidante, her essential part. They don’t need to see each other everyday, hell, they might meet years from now and still be the same. Still close. Matt is something special to Natasha. 

So when people don’t understand him – when they ask him to be a hero, as well as a perfect friend, a perfect spouse, a perfect man – she’s so angry. She’s furious. It’s unfair. 

_Solve your own problems,_ she wants to say. _Leave him alone._

When they tell Matt that he brings trouble, that he involves them in bad things, that he frustrates them and makes being around him difficult, Natasha wants to beat them. Beat them dead. 

_So quit_ , she wants to yell. _Why stick around and be unhappy? You’re hurting him. You don’t understand him. Go away._

But also: _Don’t go. You’ll kill him if you go._

Sometimes life is unfair, and then sometimes some people just aren’t meant to be happy. Natasha and Matt are cursed with rotten luck. They ruin lives about as much as they save them. 

But they love each other. 

“Okay?” she asks, sitting on his floor barefoot with the moon as her only light. 

“Okay,” he says, with his eyes closed. 

**6**

Murdock fights like he’s dying. Like he’s been diagnosed with an incurable virus or terminal cancer or some shit. It’s one of those illnesses that makes him rabid before he dies – before he goes cold, turns white, and falls down dead. He’s seen it before. He’s known those men that live on the edge, but they damn well don’t live on it long. 

A part of him feels like he’s bleeding out when Murdock pulls this shit. 

“Choirboy, you’re so goddamn stupid,” he tells him. His gun is somewhere in the wreckage. The roof had fallen on them and it had gone flying along with the rest of Frank as Murdock tackled him to safety. 

“Shut up, Frank. We need to get out of here.” 

But Frank isn’t in a hurry. He likes that gun, and he’s gonna find it. He also enjoys doing the exact opposite of what Murdock wants just to piss him off. 

“You go then,” he snaps when Murdock insists. 

“You know I won’t.” 

Frank knows. It’s the same for him. Frank couldn’t leave Murdock in danger even if he tried. Well, at least not in serious danger. They liked to hurt each other, sure, but they’d never go the distance and just end it. The Punisher and Daredevil will probably fight each other until the end of time, if villains or old age doesn’t get to them first. 

They’ve got a weird thing going on. Or Murdock does, at least. The guy once created his own super team in order to stalk Frank through New York. Then he purposely went into some fucked up cloak-portal to retrieve Frank all so he could arrest him. Then there was the numerous times Murdock pulled his ass out of the fire before or after beating the shit out of him. 

But it wasn’t just Murdock. There was that whole Rykers thing, after all. What possessed him to get locked up with his nemesis, Frank will never know. He probably has a brain tumor or something. It’s the only reasonable explanation. 

“Red, quit hovering,” he says, pulling his gun out of the rubble triumphantly. “I swear to god I’ll shoot you.”

“You’ll miss,” Murdock goads.

So of course Frank shoots at him, and then they’re fighting again, and he’s pretty sure the villain-of-the-week is bored watching them and has slunk off to bother Spider-Man instead. 

Screw ‘em. 

He and Murdock have a thing. 

**7**

_My name is Ben Urich,_ he writes. _And if I published this story I’d be rich._

How many times has he thought that? How many times has he written it down, thinking of how it would be his big break; how it would get him away from Jonah, and he’d be his own boss finally? Too many times, that’s the goddamn answer. Too many.

Ben’ll sit at his desk at the Bugle and stare at his computer screen and think, _all I have to do is write: my name is Ben Urich, and Daredevil is my friend_.

But he won’t. He won’t because he owes it to Matt to keep the parts of his life that Ben is allowed to see private. He owes it to Matt to not write the sensational story of their friendship. Of Daredevil. Of Matt’s roller-coaster of a life. Because Matt is his friend, even if it’s not mutual (Matt isn’t very good with people in general, or any sort of interpersonal relationships). So Ben backspaces and looks at his blank pages and writes a column about nothing for a measly 30 grand a year. 

“Don’t do that,” Matt says, and takes his full pack of cigarettes and lobs it onto the next roof where it bounces off the edge and falls into a dumpster. Show off. 

“If you’re wondering if I’ve heard anything on Fisk, I haven’t,” he tells Matt. “He’s underground, and it looks like he’ll stay that way for a while.” 

“He does what you least expect,” Matt argues. “He’ll come out soon. You’ll need to be careful.” 

Ben frowns. “Me? Last I heard it was you he was obsessed with killing.” 

Matt is tense, but jittery. He’s like a live-wire when Fisk is shadowing him. Ben understands the feeling; he still has nightmares about Elektra. 

“He wants me to suffer,” Matt explains. “He won’t just kill me. He wants to hurt me first. That means going after the people I care about.” 

_My name is Ben Urich,_ he thinks, mouth falling open. _And I will never publish a bad word about my friend._

“Ok, I’ll, um, be careful. If you will.” 

Matt smiles at him wryly, and retorts, “quit smoking and I will.” 

He won’t. The smoking and the risk-taking will continue because that’s their dynamic. They face danger together. 

Ben isn’t a hero; he’s honestly never thought he was anything but a journalist, and a mediocre one at that. But Matt is one of those people that will remain a legend for hundreds of years after he’s gone, and the only way that can happen is if his story is immortalized somehow. Ben can do that. That’s Ben’s job. 

_My name is Ben Urich,_ he plans to write, someday. _And I’m friends with a real, live, legendary hero. You might know him._

_His name is Matt Murdock._

**8**

And then there’s Foggy. 

They meet in college and become avocados at law (that’s an inside joke, pick up the autobiography for more information). When Foggy meets Matt the first thing he thinks is, _wow, hot roommate. And holy shit he’s blind_.

Foggy was kind of a dork in college, admittedly. 

Matt isn’t a dork. He is suave, and handsome, and damned smart. He is killer with the ladies, what with his whole young Robert Redford thing going on, and can talk his way into bed with pretty much anyone (Foggy included, because he’s got eyes). For a blind dude, Matt also has an absolutely amazing body. And that ass….

Ok. So. When Foggy isn’t crushing on Matt, he can definitely admit that he’s also a teensy bit jealous. 

He regrets that, because it takes two to tango and a lot of the problems he has with Matt aren’t all completely due to Matt’s particular brand of insanity. Foggy has insecurities, ok? And Matt is…

Matt. 

But they are the best kind of friends, even when they are fighting. Foggy loves Matt, loves him like a brother, a friend; a platonic life-partner. He wants to grow old with Matt, and honestly can’t even imagine life without him and his masochistic bullshit.

But Foggy has moments where he’s not so sure that Matt feels the same. Moments when he feels useless, lesser – an annoying sidekick in the Daredevil saga. Moments when Matt is too bright for him to even look at. Why would Matt need Foggy? Was Foggy imagining a closeness that wasn’t there? Was he Matt’s best friend too? 

Thing is, Matt had never really had a lot of friends. At least not since the accident that took his sight, and certainly not in the years that Foggy has known him. There are things about Matt that make being his friend very hard – some of which are obvious and some only Foggy knows. 

It is the privilege of being ‘the best friend’, to know more about Matt than anyone else; which actually makes it easier to put up with Matt’s quirks. There are sucky reasons why Matt is the way he is, and Foggy does his best to know them all and keep them in mind. 

Friendship, in particular, is a hard pill for Matt to swallow. 

It takes Foggy ages to understand why. In college, he sort of thinks Matt treats people like they are a little bit stupid, and a lot beneath him (with the exception of Foggy, thankfully). After a few months of a very standoffish Matt, Foggy finally wins him over and they become good roommates, good friends, and then best friends. But it took time, and effort (mostly on Foggy’s part). 

As their friendship grew, Foggy came to understand that the thing about Matt is that he assumes nothing. He assumes no kindness from strangers, no consideration from his elders, and no affection from his friends. He keeps his distance not because he feels that others aren’t worthy of his company, but because he thinks he is not worthy of theirs. Matt never expects people to love him. 

But they did. They do. And Matt asks why, and Foggy says, _because that’s just how it works, Matty_.

One day Matt will understand this. 

Foggy will make sure of it.

In the meantime, all Foggy has to do is stick by his friend. This is harder than it seems, because Matt is definitely the most complicated person he has ever met. His life is one tragedy after another, really, and Matt handles it with varying degrees of mania and depression. Foggy’s cancer, for instance, is hitting Matt pretty hard. It’s not very visible of course, but he knows his best friend, and while he initially worries that this will trigger Matt, it turns out okay in the end. Matt’s actually…doing ok. 

Foggy knows it won’t last, but that’s not a problem, because he’s in it for the long haul, and with Matt, chaos is pretty much the rule. Everyone wanting to be friends with Matt should just get ready to be caught in it. No complaining. No take-backs.

Because that’s what happens when you orbit people like they’re planets; you either resign yourself to being on the outside looking in, or you collide, and become something new, and maybe better, than before. 

**9**

But Foggy is wrong. What he doesn’t know is that there’s a third option. That planets can orbit things too – that Matt in fact orbits Foggy, because Foggy is a thing called a star, and he is at the center of Matt’s universe. 

One day Foggy will understand this.

Matt will make sure of it.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://shockcity.tumblr.com)


End file.
